‘Hold on.’
He pulled the artefact away from the mud carefully, but, as he did so, more of it fell away to reveal an empty space where the oil from the artefact had obviously spilled – he could see the golden slick even against the dark mud – and in this tiny space was a riot of vegetation. A number of small plants had burst into life here, apparently underground and out of sight of the sun. There were thick branches with crowds of leaves, even flowers and the beginnings of fruit. He blinked at it in confusion.
‘Tor, what is it?’
‘Here, look for yourself.’ Holding the artefact under one arm, Tor cleared away the rest of the mud and stepped back, revealing the vibrant and unexpected garden. It was an odd patch of colour amongst the black earth and pale roots. Above him, he heard Vintage catch her breath.
‘The egg thing is broken at the top, and leaking some sort of golden fluid. And it appears to have led to this.’ He gestured at the small riot of vegetation.
Vintage looked thunderstruck. ‘Broken? It wasn’t broken yesterday. Did we break it?’
‘How can it have caused those plants?’ asked Noon. ‘That makes no sense.’
‘Some sort of Jure’lia magic, my dear,’ said Vintage. She had not taken her eyes from the unlikely garden. ‘I will want samples of everything, Tor, and the whole object removed and taken back with us to Mushenska. I’ll pass the jars down to you. And a pair of gloves. Can you get a sample of the fluid?’
It took Tor much of the rest of the morning to pack everything up as Vintage required. The egg-like artefact was put into a collapsible box Vintage had brought with her, packed with sheep’s wool, and many jars were filled with samples of the strange plants that had grown overnight in the dark. Of the golden fluid, he managed only to collect one vial’s worth, being extremely careful not to get any on his hands. When, finally, he climbed out of the hole he felt dirty and tired, and he was certain part of that was down to what the fell-witch had done to him the night before. He wanted blood, and could feel the weight of the small glass vials in his own pack, but felt reluctant to get them out in front of the witch, with her watchful, dark eyes. It’s not even fresh, he told himself. What Sareena had given him was days old now, and its effects would be greatly reduced.
‘So this was part of a Behemoth? Like the corpse moon?’
The girl was crouched on a clump of exposed roots, her arms wrapped around herself again. To Tor she looked like a small dishevelled bird, ready to take flight at any moment. In the half-light of the morning the tattoo on her forehead was a dark smudge. Vintage was logging what they had found in one of her many notebooks, but she looked up with a smile at the girl’s question.
‘This thing was inside one once, yes. But my guess is that the Behemoth broke up in the skies over this forest, oh, a thousand years ago, and some of the wreckage landed here, only to be lost under the encroaching Wild. Even small pieces of a Behemoth are enough to attract a parasite spirit, it seems.’
‘But there are whole ones. In places.’
Vintage nodded up at the sky. ‘Our ever-present friend the corpse moon is one, my dear, trapped somehow on its way back out of our sky. And yes, there are others. Famous sites where Behemoths crashed. Three are no longer there, as they have been picked apart by scavengers or eroded away by time. One, on the coast of Kerakus, has been partly swallowed by the sea.’ Vintage paused, a brief shadow passing over her face, and then she seemed to shake it off. ‘Two others are now in pieces, on their way to being lost entirely themselves.’ Vintage stood up, briskly rubbing her hands together. There was a damp chill between the toadstools, a mist that was lingering around the stalks. ‘And three others. One somewhere in the vast tract of desert known as the Singing Eye. One on the heights of the Elru mountain, although it was said that last year it broke apart, the largest half falling into a chasm. And the last is on a piece of land owned by one Esiah Godwort. His family built walls all around it, and you can only enter the compound with his permission. He hoards it to himself like a dragon with gold, which is why I believe it to be the most intact example.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Which is why I believe we should refresh ourselves, gather our wits, and go there next.’
Tor laughed, ignoring the perplexed look Noon shot him. ‘What makes you think Godwort will let you in this time? As opposed to the five other times you have asked? You know it’s not about coin with that roots-addled fool.’
‘It’s not to do with coin, no, you are quite right, Tormalin, my dear. But now we have something quite different to barter with.’
For the briefest second Vintage’s crafty gaze shifted to the fell-witch, but the girl was oblivious. Tor sighed; it seemed that Vintage really was intent on keeping the creature.
‘Right. Fine. Can we get back to Mushenska now please?’ He picked up the biggest pack, weighted now with various glass jars filled with dirt as well as the broken artefact, and settled it easily on his back. ‘I’m thirsty.’
12
What do we know of the Jure’lia, then? Astonishingly little, given how long they have been haunting our history.
First, Jure’lia comes from the Kesenstan word for ‘worm’, or, more accurately, ‘worm people’. As far as we can tell, Kesenstan would have been one of the first places to experience an invasion; artefacts dating back thousands of years have been found during mining operations in the country. We do not know what the Jure’lia call themselves.